A Suitable Enemy: Racism, Migration and Islamophobia in Europe

Liz Fekete is a leading authority on issues of racism, Islamophobia and national security legislation. A Suitable Enemy draws on sixteen years of research to present a comprehensive overview of EU immigration, asylum, race and security policies.

Fekete argues that at the same time as the EU introduces selective migration policies, it closes its borders against asylum seekers who were the first victims of the growth of the security state which now embraces Muslims. She explores the way in which anti-terrorist legislation has been used to evict undesirable migrants, how deportation policies commodify and de-humanise the most vulnerable and how these go hand in hand with evolving forms of racism, particularly Islamophobia.

At the heart of the book is an examination of xeno-racism -- a non-colour coded form of institutionalised racism -- where migrants who do not assimilate, or who are believed to be incapable of assimilation, are excluded.

Liz Fekete is Executive Director of the Institute of Race Relations and has written and lectured widely on issues of migration, race and security in Europe. She edits the European Race Bulletin. She is a consultant on refugee and immigration issues to a number of organisations, including the Refugee Council, and was an expert witness at the Basso Permanent Peoples' Tribunal and the World Tribunal on Iraq.